我国《专利法》英译本中情态动词“shall”的法律意图辨析

摘要

以《中华人民共和国专利法》官方英译文本为语料，以言语行为理论为依据，采用内容分析法，辨析情态动词“shall”的法律意图。研究结果显示，情态动词“shall”在我国《专利法》官方英译文中呈现出五种法律意图：义务、权利、禁止、允许以及宣布；依照以言行事行为，将其分为三类：指令类、承诺类以及宣告类。该研究有助于译者在翻译法律文本时更加准确地使用“shall”来传达立法者的法律意图。%This paper interprets the intentions of the modal verb“shall”in the Chinese-to-English translation of Patent Law of the People’s Republic of China from the perspective of Speech Act Theory through content analysis. The result shows that there are five intentions of“shall”: duty, right, prohibition, permission and declaration. According to the classification of Illocutionary Acts, these intentions can be further divided into directives, commissives and declaratives. As a case study, this thesis may help translators in translating legal documents with even more precise and consistent intentions when using the word“shall”.